The disposal of solid waste material, particularly hazardous waste material, is a continuing problem. Hazardous waste materials must be properly handled to avoid harm to humans and the environment.
Incineration of waste material is a principal method of waste disposal. However, the ash by-products of incineration (including municipal incinerator ash, fly ash and bottom ash, for example) can themselves be considered a hazardous waste since it may contain labile heavy metals and other hazardous substances such as organic compounds, for example dioxins. Such substances are dangerous to humans and will cause contamination unless the ash is disposed of in a safe manner, such as in a regulated landfill. Disposal represents an ever-present risk to the environment. It is therefore desirable to provide a process and apparatus for further transforming hazardous wastes and other undesirable waste materials to materials which are suitable for environmentally safe disposal or even useful products. These other hazardous or otherwise undesirable wastes can also include chipped metal wastes, such as paint cans, waste metals or iron with waste oil, electroplated materials and contaminated aluminum stampings. Also included are low level radioactivity wastes, radioactive mixed wastes, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), among many others. It is also desirable to provide a process and apparatus for the transformation of solid waste materials considered to be extremely hazardous such as "sharps" (used surgical equipment such as scalpels) and other solid metallic medical wastes.
Processes and apparatus for reducing waste materials to separable constituents have been proposed in the past, but none is known to be widely used commercially. Deficiencies in high temperature waste treatment processes have limited their utility. Difficulties in processing the effluent of the combustion process which are themselves hazardous have required costly special treatment.
The apparatus and process of the present invention overcome the prior art problems and result in an efficient and effective treatment to convert undesirable waste material into environmentally acceptable and useful products with removal or destruction of unrecyclable components.